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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22563463">Ripped Away</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToriCeratops/pseuds/ToriCeratops'>ToriCeratops</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Author Is a Whump-asaurus-rex, Blood, Loss, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg, Trauma, Unplanned Pregnancy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 19:09:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,109</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22563463</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToriCeratops/pseuds/ToriCeratops</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Malcolm wakes up in the hospital after his time with Watkins he discovers he's lost more than he ever realized he could.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gil Arroyo/Malcolm Bright</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>99</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Prodigal Son Kink Meme</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ripped Away</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>For a prompt on the <a href="https://prodigal-kink.dreamwidth.org/447.html?page=2#comments"> Prodigal Son Kink Meme.</a></p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There's so much blood.<br/>
<br/>
Why is there so much blood?<br/>
<br/>
It's everywhere. It's on his hands, on his stomach, on his shirt, his pants, his shoes. His whole world is red and every inch of his body screams in agony.<br/>
<br/>
Even when Malcolm finally succumbs to the blood loss in his mother's bedroom nothing goes black but a deep, dark, terrifying crimson.<br/>
<br/>
Voices break through the emptiness.<br/>
<br/>
Flashes of lights.<br/>
<br/>
Sirens.<br/>
<br/>
Wails of pain.<br/>
<br/>
Are they his cries? Are they someone else's?<br/>
<br/>
Gil speaks to him in the dark. His mother is there too. So is his dad. Ainsley. JT. Dani. John Watkins whispers to him over and over. This is all his fault. All of this pain. All of this desolation. Malcolm started this.<br/>
<br/>
This is his penance.<br/>
<br/>
The first thing he recognizes, knows he's actually feeling, is really there, is a hand over his. It’s warm and familiar, a roughness to it that is comforting. He doesn’t move, but focuses on that touch, on the connection, to help bring himself out of the haze of sleep and drugs weighing so heavily on him.<br/>
<br/>
Malcolm opens his eyes, blinking despite the light on the wall being the only one on and turned down low.<br/>
<br/>
As he’d expected to see, Gil is at his bedside, head laid on one arm at the edge of the mattress, his other hand resting, vigilant, over Malcolm’s. For several minutes Malcolm doesn’t move, just watches him sleep. Fleetingly, he wonders what time it is. Then he wonders how long it's been, what Gil went through while he was missing, how close he had come to actually bleeding to death.<br/>
<br/>
There had been so much blood.<br/>
<br/>
Before he can decide to move himself, Gil stirs. He sits up with his own groggy blinking and does a double take once his eyes land on the younger man.<br/>
<br/>
“Malcolm…” he breathes out, quiet and so full of pain and relief Malcolm doesn’t know what to do with it. There are dried tears on his face, deep, purple bags under his eyes, and a small red line across one cheek.<br/>
<br/>
“Hi.” Malcolm’s voice is dried and cracked, breaking on just the one word.<br/>
<br/>
Gil’s lips are trembling and there’s a pain still in his eyes that can’t be overshadowed by his relief at seeing Malcolm finally awake. “Hey baby.” He grabs Malcolm’s hand and presses it against his lips, holding there like he thought he’d never get to touch him again.<br/>
<br/>
After getting Gil to help him take a few sips of lukewarm water, Malcolm shifts just enough Gil can sit on the edge of the mattress. “How long?” He asks.<br/>
<br/>
“Two days.” Gil’s lips are trembling and he looks so small and lost. Malcolm has never seen him like this, never seen him as anything but a mountain of strength. “You uh, you went through a hell of a lot down there.”<br/>
<br/>
He can remember most of it; the chains, the pain, the knife, the hammer.<br/>
<br/>
Rivers of blood.<br/>
<br/>
“How’s Ainsley?” He asks instead of focusing on what happened to him. If he worries about others, he doesn’t have to focus on his pain, on the ache still settling low in his stomach.<br/>
<br/>
Gil gives a weak hint of a smile. “Had a hell of a headache, but she’ll be fine.”<br/>
<br/>
“And this?” Malcolm musters up enough energy to lift his hand from Gil’s grip and swipe his thumb gently over the thin red cut across Gil’s cheek. He leaves his hand there, cradling Gil’s face. The older man turns into the touch, brings a hand up to hold him there, kisses his wrist, and never stops trembling.<br/>
<br/>
“Ah. Well.” He lets out a humorless laugh. “This is courtesy of your mother. She uh, she was rightfully upset with me.”<br/>
<br/>
Anger surges through Malcolm’s chest at Gil’s words. He’s somehow not surprised, of course. She’s always putting the blame for things in the wrong directions, aiming her rage and pain at others. “This wasn’t your fault, though. Surely even she could see that.” Instead of nodding or agreeing like Malcolm expects him to, Gil just hangs his head. A tear escapes his eye, trailing down an already well streaked path to land in the scruff forming on his face. Something in Malcolm cracks. There’s something else, something he’s missing. Something bad enough to make the strongest man he’s ever known cry.<br/>
<br/>
“Gil,” Malcolm begs, quieter than ever, “tell me what’s wrong.”<br/>
<br/>
Gil swallows and brings Malcolm’s hand back to his trembling lips. “You,” He takes a deep, shaken breath and lets it out slowly. “Jesus.” Gil closes his eyes, breathes again.<br/>
<br/>
“You had a miscarriage, Malcolm.”<br/>
<br/>
That…<br/>
<br/>
That can’t be right?<br/>
<br/>
<em>there’s so much blood…</em><br/>
<br/>
He wasn’t.<br/>
<br/>
He couldn’t be.<br/>
<br/>
The crack running through his chest from seeing Gil so broken starts to fissure and break, an earthquake of pain that makes all his walls begin to crumble and fall.<br/>
<br/>
He blinks at Gil, unable to breathe. “But... I’m not…”<br/>
<br/>
Gil nods.<br/>
<br/>
Malcolm shatters.<br/>
<br/>
“How far?” He manages through the tears now streaming down his own face.<br/>
<br/>
“Almost nine weeks. About.”<br/>
<br/>
“But I.. I’m not supposed to be able to. They said that all the stress and… and the years of medication. I couldn’t… Oh god.” This was never supposed to even be a possibility. He’d convinced himself he’d be a terrible parent when they told him he’d likely never be one anyway. When they’d told him that had been destroyed along with everything else in his life. His chance at a future, at normalcy, at having something good in his life.<br/>
<br/>
His chances of conceiving had always been astronomically low, next to nothing, ‘it would be a miracle’ levels. And he’d done it. <em>they’d done it</em><br/>
<br/>
And it was ripped away from them.<br/>
<br/>
From both of them.<br/>
<br/>
Malcolm looks at Gil, at the tears in his eyes, at the way he’s looking at him, so lost and broken and crumbles impossibly further.<br/>
<br/>
This is his fault. This ache, this cavern that’s formed in his heart. Malcolm put that there, put the steps in motion that caused this, that took this from them, from Gil.<br/>
<br/>
“I’m so sorry.” Malcolm’s chest feels like he’s being crushed. “I’m so sorry.”<br/>
<br/>
“Don’t you dare.” Gil grits out, shifting on the bed and carefully pulling Malcolm into his arms. “Don’t you dare, baby. This isn’t on you.”<br/>
<br/>
He’s wrong, of course.<br/>
<br/>
This is entirely his own fault.<br/>
<br/>
Malcolm holds onto Gil as tightly as his weak and broken body can manage, buries his head against his chest, and weeps.<br/>
<br/>
For himself, for Gil, and for everything that could have been.</p>
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